Centre for Governance and Human Rights Potter Report 1211

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Centre for Governance and Human Rights

Department of Politics and International StudiesUniversity of Cambridge

ANNUAL REPORT 2010–11

Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR) Annual Report 2010-11During its second year, the Centre of Governance and Human Rights has advanced its goal of becoming an innovative forum for research, knowledge-sharing and ideas exchange within Cambridge on issues of human rights and governance in Africa and the global South. We have focused in particular on developing our research agenda, and have grown our capabilities for such work. Notably, we brought on board our fi rst post-doctoral Research Associates, Dr Iginio Gagliardone and Dr Florence Brisset-Foucault, to take forward our research on the theme of new technologies and political change in Africa.

This theme is developing as a core expertise within CGHR, and a timely one given events in North Africa and the Middle East during 2011. We have now organised numerous seminars and conferences on this theme (for example, ‘New Media/Alternative Politics’ in October 2010 and ‘Beyond Revolutions’ in November 2011), delivered papers at various external fora (for example, the Cambridge ICT4D conference, the Guardian-hosted Africa Gathering in London and a public forum on ‘ICTs and Human Rights’ in Seoul, South Korea), reached out to new collaborators and research partners in Africa and elsewhere, and attracted new fi nancial supporters (such as the Indigo Trust, and CRASSH at Cambridge, in addition to the Lord Cairns and the Isaac Newton Trust). We have recently applied for funding from the ESRC/DFID for a major research project looking at the rise of ‘public opinion’ polling in the context of democratic elections and public debate in Africa.

Our Research Group is building strongly upon foundations laid in its fi rst year, attracting researchers from across Cambridge to present their work and receive valuable feedback. Our Student Group is also very active. In the coming year it will expand its activities to reach out to the wider student community with various events, including a practitioner seminar series that will expose students to opportunities to work in the broad areas of human rights, humanitarian aid, development and peacebuilding.

Our work with associates in Cambridge and partners in the UK and across the world continues to grow: 2010-11 saw active collaborations with YouGov-Cambridge and the University of Pretoria start to develop in earnest, in addition to our work with FrontlineSMS on our ‘New Communication Technologies and Citizen-Led Governance in Africa’ project.

The year ahead looks to be more busy and exciting for CGHR than 2010-11, as we move into new premises on the Sidgwick Site and build our team and areas of work. We remain extremely grateful to the Trustees of he David and Elaine Potter Foundation for their vision in endowing my post which provided the catalyst for

the creation of CGHR.

CGHR Team From Left to Right: Dr Sharath Srinivasan, Dr Iginio Gagliardone, Dr Florence Brisset-Foucault, Dr Alastair Fraser, Daniella Ritzau-Reid, Emil Graesholm.

ResearchResearch is at the core of the Centre, and 2010/11 has been a period of exciting growth and development. Most signifi cantly, this year has seen the launch of a two-year research collaboration with FrontlineSMS, the applied research project ‘New Communications Technologies and Citizen-Led Governance in Africa’.

Pilot research project 2011-2013: New Communication Technologies and Citizen-Led Governance in Africa (Funded by the Lord Cairns and the Isaac Newton Trust)

CGHR’s pilot research project ‘New Communications Technologies and Citizen-led Governance in Africa’ is now well into its operative phase. The project, developed in collaboration with FrontlineSMS (see below), examines whether and how innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are enriching citizen-led governance in Africa.

Our approach is inspired by two main tenets: x� that an understanding of ICTs’ potential to reconfi gure citizen-state relations has to be grounded in

empirical evidence; x� and that new frameworks are needed to capture the ways in which ICTs interact with the unique

structures and practices characterizing governance in Africa.

With low internet penetration, the African continent has been perceived as unable to reap the benefi ts reaped elsewhere by the information revolution. The recent and rapid diffusion of mobile telephony has changed this assessment. Mobile communications’ ability to interact with traditional media and forms of communication and organisation is fostering unique changes in the way people engage with public debate, access information and make claims. New media are being used in innovative ways for political participation that, as seen with applications such as mobile banking or crisis mapping, may be emerging within Africa but may migrate far beyond.

Context and academic research agenda

The pervasiveness of new ICTs such as mobile phones, as well as their ability to interact with older communication technologies such as radio, enables users to contribute to the shaping of new public spaces and to experiment with innovative ways of infl uencing political actions. Examples of civil society-led innovations combining mobile phones with other media are emerging in areas ranging from election monitoring in Nigeria, Sudan and Malawi, to corruption tracking in Mozambique. At the same time, the role of radio and mobile phones in inciting violence and promoting sectarianism has also been a signifi cant concern, as illustrated in the aftermath of the highly contested elections in Kenya in 2007. The diversity and pace with which these innovations have grown has made it diffi cult for researchers to adequately explore their nature and political effects. CGHR’s interdisciplinary research project is among the fi rst attempts to study empirically the political signifi cance of these emerging phenomena. It employs a framework that recognizes ICTs as multi-purpose tools and studies their potentially transformative ability to enable individuals to achieve outcomes of their own choosing. The framework draws on the human development and capability approach pioneered by Amartya Sen, and combines critical insights from the academic tradition of investigating processes of governance in fragile states with the literature on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development. The project is designed to capture not only the instrumental effects of these innovations on improving public decision-making and outcomes, but also their intrinsic value for human well-being and their constructive roles in shaping how citizens understand political and social issues. The research will focus on three key questions:

1. How do citizens interpret and value ICTs, and mobile phones in particular, for their ability to access public goods and participate in public life?

2. How are people combining new and old ICTs, such as mobile phones and radio, for political participation?

3. How do the increased opportunities to articulate voice and coordinate political actions affect formal and informal governance processes?

The collaboration with FrontlineSMS

FrontlineSMS is the fi rst text messaging system created exclusively to address the barrier of poor communications faced by grassroots non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in developing countries. By leveraging basic tools already available to most NGOs – computers and mobile phones – FrontlineSMS enables instantaneous two-way communication on a large scale. The software is open source, and once installed on a laptop it enables users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones.

FrontlineSMS and CGHR have collaborated to develop FrontlineSMS:Radio, a venture that builds on the core technology of FrontlineSMS, and extends it to radio stations across Africa. Radio represents the dominant media and information source for many and SMS is increasingly being used by radio stations to facilitate two-way communication with listeners. FrontlineSMS:Radio aims to harness the signifi cant power and uses of both radio and SMS, to create a dynamic and interactive tool that furthers this interaction between radio stations and their audiences. The two-way communication this enables can be used in any number of ways – allowing listeners to contribute their opinions, register their vote in radio polls, react to current affairs, or submit news stories or even simply song requests. The crux of the technology is participation, as the tool is designed to enable large-scale cost-effective interaction between radio stations and their audiences. By introducing and researching FrontlineSMS technology, the aim is that increasing numbers of stations have the ability to send, receive and manage SMS messages that stimulate debate on issues such as health, governance and the environment.

CGHR’s applied research into the infl uence new communications technologies have on citizen participation and grass-roots governance processes will monitor and evaluate the rollout of this tool. The research will asses how communities access and input information through FrontlineSMS:Radio, particularly addressing how the improved mobile phone-to-radio facility plays out among the communities involved. Does new technology such as this facilitate greater participation? Are more people engaged in discussions about social and political issues, and if so, what value does this have for individuals and communities? Do these potential interactions have a practical impact on service delivery, governance processes and rights?

Key Staff on the Project

CGHR Post-Doctoral Research Associate: Dr Iginio GagliardoneIginio Gagliardone joined CGHR in March 2011 to lead the research project on ‘New Communication Technologies and Citizen-led Governance in Africa’. Iginio has worked for UNESCO in Addis Ababa, coordinating programs for the use of ICTs for development, and for the Stanhope Centre for Communication Policy Research. His recent research projects include an analysis of the implications of China’s increasing involvement in the media in Africa and the coordination of the collection of public opinions in Darfur on understandings of the confl ict and efforts to support peace initiatives. He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics investigating the relationship between ICTs and nation-building in Ethiopia. Iginio is also an Associate of the Centre for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

CGHR Post-Doctoral Research Associate: Dr Florence Brisset-FoucaultFlorence Brisset-Foucault is CGHR's second post-doctoral Research Associate on the ‘New Communication Technologies and Citizen-led Governance in Africa’ research project. Her interests lie in political imaginaries and processes of state formation in Africa, and she works on a variety of topics with a focus on East Africa, from the contemporary manifestations of nationalism in Buganda to the history and sociology of the media, and practices of oratory (especially ‘street parliaments’ and radio talk shows), as well as political education. She has also been a member of several research projects focused on electoral politics in Uganda and in Kenya. She is a member of the Association des Chercheurs de Politique Africaine (ACPA) as well as the Groupe d’Initiatives et de Recherches sur l’Afrique (GIRAF). Prior to joining CGHR, Florence completed her PhD in political science at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, for which she explored repertoires of criticism and imaginaries of citizenship in contemporary Uganda through the analysis of open radio debates (ebimeeza).

CGHR Associate: Dr Alastair FraserDr Alastair Fraser is the Philomathia Fellow in African Politics based at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His post is supported by a gift from the Philomathia Foundation to his college. His primary research interests are in Southern Africa (principally Zambia), and in international relations and the political economy of development. He has published on aid negotiations, debt relief, electoral politics, populism, participatory development and poverty reduction strategies. His most recent publication is a volume co-edited with Miles Larmer: Zambia, Mining, and Neoliberalism – Boom and Bust on the Globalized Copperbelt (Palgrave Mac illan, 2010).

Research Project Update

The project entered its operative phase in July 2011, with Iginio commencing fi eldwork in Kenya. Iginio has been conducting research in collaboration with academics and media organisations, as well as with radio stations in Nairobi, Kisumu and Nakuru. In August 2011, Dr Alastair Fraser travelled to Zambia to conduct fi eldwork there. The preliminary fi ndings presented at a workshop organised in collaboration with The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) in Cambridge on 11 November 2011. A seminar series on New Communication Technologies and Governance in Africa held in Michaelmas Term 2011, w key experts in the fi eld invited to present their research, also to refl ect on some of issues raised by CGHR’s study. Building on these various activities, a series of teaching modules will also be created to be taught to MPhil students in Lent Term.

Project workshop in Kenya

ICTs and governance in Africa: What is changing and how we can we study the changes? Nairobi, 18-19 August 2011.

The Centre of Governance and Human Rights organised a workshop on the 18th and 19th of August in Nairobi, Kenya, exploring different approaches to researching ICTs and governance in Africa. The workshop offered an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to refl ect on the tools and practices that can be used to investigate how citizens seek to use ICTs to infl uence governance, and to propose approaches that can guide both research and new applications. Day One consisted of a series of one-hour sessions where presenters gave an overview of their research agenda, frameworks and fi ndings, and received feedback from the participants. On Day Two, selected individuals took stock from the discussion to propose ways forward and combinations of different methods for analysing the implications of innovative uses of ICTs on governance processes. The workshop summary report will be made available soon. Speakers included:

Dr. Iginio Gagliardone (University of Cambridge)Tara Susman-Peña (Internews)Tim Waema (University of Nairobi)Margaret Nyambura Ndung'u (University of Nairobi)Vincenzo Cavallo (Cultural Video Foundation)Mark Frohardt (Internews)Eva Constantaras (Internews)

CGHR and YouGov-Cambridge

YouGov plc, a research and consulting organisation, which pioneered the use of the internet and information technology to collect high quality, in-depth data for market research and stakeholder consultation, has teamed up with the University to create a new kind of think-tank – YouGov@Cambridge – where world-class academics can connect with the public pulse, as provided by YouGov’s international polling in both the developed and emerging markets. As an initial collaboration, CGHR and YouGov@Cambridge collaborated on a public opinion poll of UK attitudes towards the Libyan intervention. The poll was conducted in July and a short blogpost by Sharath Srinivasan was published in the Huffi ngton Post’s UK edition in August.1 CGHR is now developing more substantial collaborations with YouGov@Cambridge, including applied research with FrontlineSMS that aims at developing more robust and contextually viable approaches to public opinion polling in developing country contexts.

1 see: www.huffi ngtonpost.co.uk/yougov-cambridge/a-reluctant-responsibilit_b_930548.html

University of Pretoria

CGHR and the Faculty of Law and Centre of Human Rights at the University of Pretoria have begun to develop a multifaceted long-term partnership that includes teaching visits, doctoral student exchanges and research collaborations. The fi rst doctoral research student from Pretoria, Mr Adem Kassie, arrived in Cambridge in October 2011, and presented his work for feedback at the CGHR Research Group in late November. Sharath Srinivasan will teach on the Pretoria LLM over Easter 2012. CGHR are also providing research support for Professor Christof Heyns in his capacity as United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, for a thematic report on the right to life of journalists.

CGHR Research Group

The Centre’s Governance and Human Rights Research Group has had an excellent fi rst year, holding regular monthly seminars across a broad range of human rights and governance themes with clear and constructive interest across academics and researchers. The edited working papers and recorded seminars are being collated on the website as an open and accessible resource. In response to the increasing interest, the Research Group plans to expand its reach in the forthcoming academic year by building relationships and potentially joint endeavours with practitioner organisations including the Cambridge Humanitarian Centre. In respect of its aim to facilitate exchange between younger and more established academics, the seminar series will also be opened to undergraduates to encourage development of junior scholars and strengthen student support to the centre.

The past papers presented at the Research Group Nov 2010 – June 2011 are outlined in Annex 1.

Events & Speaking EngagementsThe interdisciplinary research agenda promoted by the Centre has been successfully established through a series of independent and partnership events run throughout the year in Cambridge, as well as external speaking engagements at a selection of international events. These have enabled CGHR to put forward the core research themes to a wide selection of practitioners and other academics, facilitate discussion and progress the development of ideas and thinking that lies central to the Centre’s purpose. All events are outlined in Annex 2 and posters for selected events at Annex 4.

Key events have included the conference New Media/Alternative Politics outlined in more detail below, and the workshop Wake of War – Getting Out: Exit Strategies and Transitions co-hosted by CGHR, the Post-Confl ict Post-Crisis Group and the University’s Centre for Research in the Arts Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). This brought together a fascinating range of contributors including the Director of Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford, a Senior Prosecutor at the

ICTY , and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Marines, and was the concluding workshop in the Wake of War series. The workshop addressed issues surrounding the conclusion or transformation of international intervention in end-of-confl ict situations and asking how and when it is appropriate for the international community to withdraw from a post-confl ict situation, which exit strategies have been most appropriate and when a situation actually stops being post-confl ict.

Speakers hosted by CGHR include Dr Todd Landman (University of Essex) proposing a Comparative Politics of Human Rights, Dr Dana Burde (New York University) on Preventing Violent Attacks on Education in Afghanistan: Considering the Role of Community-Based Schools, and Dr Camilla Toulmin, the Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) discussing Climate Change in Africa.

External representation has been equally as strong, with CGHR presenting at a range of national and international events. This has included the joint CGHR/FrontlineSMS presentation at the 2011 Africa Gathering in June, co-hosted by the Guardian Global Development Site on the theme New Media Revolutionizing Africa. This was a particularly unique opportunity to engage with policy makers, academics, journalists, technical specialists and practitioners around the core issues addressed by the current research project. CGHR also participated in the School of Advanced Study London Debates on Is there a future for human rights in a non-Western world?, and presented at the ICT4D conference Global Poverty and ICTs: what Cambridge can do to change the world at the Cambridge Humanitarian Centre.

In a look forwards to the new academic year, CGHR is involved in an exciting interdisciplinary seminar series, Between Civilisation and Militarisation, exploring the historical concepts and global dynamics of both ‘civilisation’ and ‘militarisation’ in relation to democratic governance. This will occur through a set of fortnightly seminars in Michaelmas and Lent Terms, presented by scholars from Cambridge and other universities and potentially by policy practitioners from the military, Department for International Development or Foreign Offi ce . Dr Srinivasan has also presented at the Human Development and Capability Association conference on Innovation, Development and Human Capabilities, in September 2011 at he Hague.

New Media/Alternative Politics – October 2010

The spread of digital technologies in the Middle East and Africa has generated the view that ‘new media’ open up political spaces for dissent, activism and emancipation. In October 2010, CGHR and CRASSH convened the conference New Media/Alternative Politics to offer an opportunity to critically reassess these assumptions.

The conference brought together researchers, academics, activists, journalists and policy makers from the UK and the regions under examination to discuss whether and how new media empower an alternative politics and mobilises political change. The six sessions are briefl y outlined below, with the full conference report available to download from the CGHR website.

Session 1: Deliberating New Media: Creating Alternative Politics in the Middle East and Africa? Activists and researchers debate the interaction between technology and communication for political change. Speakers: Amy Saunderson-Meyer (Freedom Fone), Herman Wasserman (Rhodes University), Firoze Manji (Pambazuka News) Chair: Sharath Srinivasan and Anne Alexander (University of Cambridge)

Session 2: Mediating Confl ict and Dissent Herman Wasserman (Rhodes University), ‘Of Glasses Half Full: Exploratory Notes Towards the Role of New Media Technologies in Democratic Politics in South Africa’Nduku Otiono (University of Alberta), ‘From Urban Sphere to Cyber Space: New Media, Citizen Journalism and the Role of ‘Sahara Reporters’ in Nigeria’s Political Struggle’Adi Kuntsman (University of Manchester) and Rebecca Stein (Duke University), ‘Another War Zone: Digital Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Confl ict’Chair: Devon Curtis (University of Cambridge)

Session 3: Engaging New Audiences, Contesting Old Power Amy Saunderson-Meyer (Freedom Fone), ‘Resisting the Repression of Media Freedom in Zimbabwe’Harri Englund (University of Cambridge), ‘Rethinking Audience Engagement’  Dombo Sylvester (University of Zimbabwe), ‘Alternative or Subversive? ‘Pirate’ Radio Stations and the Opening of Spaces of Freedom and Alternative Politics in Zimbabwe, 2000-2010’

Session 4: New Media and Global Designs on Local Politics Firoze Manji (Pambazuka News), ‘All that Glistens is not always Gold: Experiences of New Media Technologies in Africa’Michael Keating (University of Massachusetts Boston), ‘Wiring the 2011 Liberian Presidential Elections: New Opportunities of International Collaboration in Media Practice’Peter Brett (School of Oriental and African Studies), ’Media (New and Old) and the Transnational Governance of African Public Spheres’

Session 5: Political Agency and Networked Publics Okoth Fred Mudhai (University of Coventry), ‘African Civil Society Challenge of Ruling Elite via New Media’Alexandra Dunn (University of Oslo), ’Public as Politician? Improvised Hierarchies of Participatory Infl uence in the April 6th Youth Movement Facebook Group’

Session 6: Researching New Media Paolo d’Urbano, ‘Ikhwanweb as a Digital Archive’Fanar Haddad, ’An Undiscovered Archive? Online Video Sharing, Alternative Narratives and the Documentation of History’

MultimediaCGHR is committed to enlarging its audience and enabling students and researchers outside of Cambridge to benefi t from its events. Our multimedia efforts are central to this; our audio and video materials attracted over 12,000 hits in 2010-11, a sharp increase from the 2,000 in 2009-10. Some highlights from the past year include:

The audio and slideshow for the Dr Toulmin talk on the CGHR website (www.polis.cam.ac.uk/cghr/events_2011_toulmin.html).The audio and slideshow for the Dr Landman talk on the CGHR website (www.polis.cam.ac.uk/cghr/events_2011_toulmin.html).

David Kato

In a major event last year, CGHR and the Gender Studies Centre hosted David Kato, one of Uganda’s leading LGBTI human rights activists and a key member of the largest sexual rights based organisation in the country – Sexual Minorities Uganda. David led an impassioned discussion with Dr Andy Tucker from the Centre for Gender Studies. In a terrible and shocking epilogue, Kato was murdered in January of this year. In respect of his memory and to enable his powerful protest remain a public one, CGHR made the recording of David’s lecture available online, which was later published on the Guardian website and received an unprecedented number of downloads (over 7,000). As written by Dr Srinivasan

‘As researchers, we are compelled to refl ect upon our role in listening to, publicising, engaging with and researching activists like David. This is certainly an ethical minefi eld with potentially very real consequences. Yet, I’m also quite sure that in his specifi c case, David would have laughed at such dilemma. He was speaking out, everywhere and anywhere he could. What would be cowardly, would be to not carry on supporting the life and death struggle he was part of in any way we can’.

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TeachingTeaching responsibilities at the Centre remain strong, and have expanded as the research agenda has been developed and funding awarded for several seminar series. Supervision to both undergraduate and graduate students remains a core responsibility. As outlined in the previous report, Dr Srinivasan together with Dr Liz Watson, Department of Geography, was awarded a Mellon Teaching Fellowship to run an inter-disciplinary seminar in Lent Term 2011 on the Political Ecology of Climate Change in Africa. The seminar was genuinely inter-disciplinary, involving students across the four MPhil programmes MPhil African Studies, MPhil Politics, MPhil International Relations and MPhil Development, as well as PhD students and established researchers. It was demonstrably valuable to be able to mix participants from different disciplines and at different stages of their studies, and was stimulating and informative for both the students and lecturers.

In addition, the North South Politics: The Case of Sudan one-off MPhil seminar-based course was successfully completed, a highly relevant course conducted at a time when the gradual process of South Sudan’s secession is fi nally being realised. Other teaching responsibilities this year, and for the future include:

x� A graduate option in African Politics, taught with Dr Devon Curtis,Department of Politics and International Studies.

x� An undergraduate third year optional paper, Politics of Africa, convened by Dr Srinivasan and taught with Dr Alastair Fraser.

x� An undergraduate compulsory taught course Ethics and World Politics, taught with Dr Duncan Bell and Professor Andrew Gamble. Modules taught by Dr Srinivasan include Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention.

x� A six-seminar Master’s module on New Communications Technologies and Political Change in Africa, jointly taught by Dr Srinivasan, Dr Florence Brisset-Foucault and Dr Iginio Gagliardone in 2012.

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PeopleStaff

Dr Sharath Srinivasan - DirectorDr Iginio Gagliardone – Post-Doctoral Research AssociateDr Florence Brisset-Foucault – Post-Doctoral Research Associate

Associates

CGHR is proud to have the support and involvement of academics and graduate researchers across Cambridge University, from various schools and disciplines. Associates provide much appreciated research support and input, collaborations on teaching or research engagements and other partnerships (see Annex 3).

Assistants

In addition, CGHR has expanded its complement to include Research Assistants on an ad-hoc basis. In 2010-11, they included Karim Amijee, Emil Graesholm and Daniella Ritzau-Reid, who were fi nal year or recent graduates from the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge.

Student Group – current and future

Concluding a successful fi rst year, the CGHR Student Group has facilitated many of the Centre’s events including the seminar on Human Rights and Academic Freedom with the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics. This year also saw the productive integration of student research with the research focus of the Centre, as Politics, Psychology, Sociology, and International Studies undergraduate Emil Graesholm supported the research project with a dissertation looking at ICT4D in Kenya. We are working to consolidate and build the Student Group into a focussed and core part of the Centre for the 2011/12 academic year, and have developed a new structure to encourage serious participation and outreach. A new Student Coordinator, PhD candidate Gabriela Martinez, was recruited to help consolidate the Student Group as a core part of CGHR.

CGHR Student Group 2010-2011Hubertus Jürgenliemk, PhD Candidate POLIS. Research Group Convenor.Mona Elbahtimy, PhD Candidate POLIS. Research Group Convener.Nadia Kevlin, MPhil Student in African Studies. Events and Publicity.Rachel Kean, 3rd year student BA Politics, Psychology and Sociology. Events and Publicity.Emil Graesholm, 3rd year student BA Politics, Psychology and Sociology. Events, Website and Multimedia.Taylor Burns, 3rd year student BA Politics, Psychology and Sociology. Design and Production.

Partners

Partner organisations span other Cambridge University research centres as well as external universities such as the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Law and Centre for Human Rights, and project partners such as Internews and the World Bank, Zambia programme. The development of the CGHR research agenda actively involves associates and partner organisations. Partners are listed in Annex 3.

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Date Event Speakers

June 2011 Urban governance as labour rights: The case of transport workers in Dar-es- Salaam, Tanzania.

Dr Matteo Rizzo, Smuts Researcher in African Studies.. Discussant Dr Alastair Fraser Trinity Hall, POLIS.

May 2011 Conspiracy Theories As Social Imaginary: The Case of Blackwater in Pakistan.

Dr Humeira Iqtidar, Lecturer in Politics, King's College London. Discussant Dr Sharath Srinivasan, CGHR Director.

March 2011

Human Rights education and the Palestinian Authority Security Services.

Dr Lori Allen, University Lecturer in Contemporary Middle Eastern Politics and Society.

February 2011

Beyond 'Asian Values': A Reassessment of Western and Asian Perspectives on Human Rights.

Yvonne Tew, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law. Discussant Dr Robert Weatherly, POLIS Associate.

January 2011

Human rights based approaches to offi cial development assistance policy.

Ms Soo Hee Choi, International Relations Offi cer, National Human Rights Commission of Korea (and CGHR Visiting Associate). Discussant Emma Mawdsley, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography.

December 2010

Civil militia groups in Indonesia: the links between national and local level politics, and the militarization of 'traditional' communities.

Dr Laurens Bakker (University of Leiden) & Dr Lee Wilson, Department of Social Anthropology. Discussant Oliver Lewis, PhD Candidate POLIS.

November 2010

Human Rights Obligations of Multinational Corporations in Weak States

Nicole Janz, PhD Candidate POLIS

Annex 1: Research Group Seminars

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Date Event Speakers Partner Organisations

March 2011

‘In the Wake of War – Getting Out: Exit Strategies and Transitions’. A workshop co-hosted by CGHR, Post-Confl ict Post-Crisis Group and CRASSH.

Professor Richard Caplan (Director, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford) Professor Dan Saxon (Senior Prosecutor, ICTY and Visiting Professor Lauterpacht Centre) Andy Carl (Director, Conciliation Resources)Justin Holt (Lieutenant Colonel, Royal Marines)Milos Stankovic (Braveheart Programme).

Post-Confl ict Post-Crisis Group, CRAASH

February 2011

‘Human Rights and Academic Freedom’A seminar co-hosted by CGHR, Council for Assisting Refugee Academics and CRASSH.

Mr Julian Huppert (Cambridge City Liberal Democrat MP, Chair of All-Party Group for Refugees)Mr Admore Tshuma (Journalist, PhD Candidate, University of Bristol)Mrs Latefa Guemar (Algerian academic involved with CARA and Centre for Migration Policy Research)Dr Terence Karran (Senior Academic, Centre for Educational Research and Development, University of Lincoln)

Council for Assisting Refugee Academics, CRASSH.

‘The Comparative Politics of Human Rights’

Dr Todd Landman (University of Essex)

Cambridge International Studies Association

‘Climate Change in Africa: impact and adaptation’

Dr Camilla Toulmin (Director, International Institute for Environment and Development)

International Institute for Environment and Development

November 2010

‘Reordering South African Townships’ ‘Preventing Violent Attacks on Education in Afghanistan: Considering the Role of Community-Based Schools’

Dr Laurent Fourchard (Researcher, Sciences Po) Dana Burde (Assistant Professor of International Education, New York University)

CRASSH

Annex 2: Events

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October 2010

‘New Media/Alternative Politics: Communication technologies and political change in the Middle East and Africa’A two day international conference convened by CGHR and CRASSH.

Chaired by Dr Sharath Srinivasan (University of Cambridge), Dr Anne Alexander (University of Cambridge)

June 2010 ‘Health in Africa’ workshop; panel on ‘Health and new Information and Communication Technologies’Panel organised as part of the workshop series by King s/Harvard Joint Centre for History and Economics.

Chair Dr Sharath Srinivasan (University of Cambridge), contributions from Professor Geoff Walsham, Dr Mark Thompson (Judge Business School) and Isaac Holeman (FrontlineSMS:Medic)

Cambridge Centre of Africa Studies, Centre for History and Economics

May 2010 ‘Domestic Violence and International Law’

Professor Bonita Meyersfeld (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa)

Cambridge University Centre for Gender Studies, Legal Research Group (POLIS)

‘What Explains Diverging Paths of Genocidal Violence? Evidence from Rwanda, Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Chad and Senegal’

Professor Scott Straus (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

‘Point of No Return: Kabila, Rwanda and the Internal Dynamics of Africa’s Great War’

Dr Philip Roessler and Mr Harry Verhoeven (University of Oxford)

April 2010 ‘Scholars at Risk: Human Rights and Academic Freedom’Roundtable discussion hosted by CGHR in association with CARA and CRASSH.

Ms Leila Alikarami (Iranian lawyer, human rights scholar and defender of women’s and children’s rights); Ms Mina Al-Lami (An Iraqi Visiting Fellow under the LSE Scholars at Risk scheme); Mr Gladston Chikwa (PhD student, University of Sheffi eld; formerly a lecturer in the Faculty of Reproductive Health and Family Sciences at Women's University in Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe); Chaired by Sir Martin Harris (President, Clare Hall)

CARA, CRASSH

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Dr Anne Alexander Dr Alexander is the Buckley Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. Her current research develops a historical comparative framework for understanding the relationship between new media and political change in the Middle East, exploring the impact of print technologies, audio- and video-cassettes, and digital technologies on social movements in the region. She has also carried out research on the contemporary Egyptian labour movement, and her doctoral dissertation analysed the role of leadership in the anti-colonial movements of Egypt and Iraq in the 1940s and 1950s. She co-edits the New Media/Alternative Politics Working Papers with Dr Srinivasan and is Co-ordinator of the Cambridge Digital Humanities Network.

Dr Duncan Bell Dr Bell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the history of modern political thought and aspects of contemporary international political theory. He has written on a wide range of topics, including the history of imperial ideologies in Britain and the United States, conceptions of social memory, political realism, and the development of the modern social sciences. He convenes a course on Ethics and World Politics in the PPS Tripos, which includes a component on Human Rights. His books include, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 (2007), and edited collections on Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme (2008) and Ethics and World Politics (2010).

Dr Devon Curtis Dr Curtis is a University Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Emmanuel College. Her main research interests and publications deal with power-sharing and governance arrangements following confl ict, insurgencies and rebel movements in Africa, the United Nations, and critical perspectives on confl ict, peacebuilding and development. Her fi eld research has concentrated on the Great Lakes region of Africa, especially Burundi.

Dr Harri Englund Dr Englund is a Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. His recent research has explored the role of the African-language radio as a medium for debates on justice and inequality. This research has resulted in the book Human Rights and African Airwaves: Mediating Equality on the Chichewa Radio (2011). Dr Englund had previously examined the translation, civic education and legal-aid activities of human rights NGOs in his book Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor (2006). His fi rst book, From War to Peace on the Mozambique-Malawi Borderland (2002) was an ethnography of exile and repatriation among self-settled refugees on the Mozambique-Malawi borderland.

Dr Alastair Fraser Dr Fraser is the Philomathia Fellow in African Politics based at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His primary research interests are in Southern Africa (principally Zambia), and in international relations and the political economy of development. He has published on aid negotiations, debt relief, electoral politics, populism, participatory development and poverty reduction strategies. His most recent publication is a volume co-edited with Miles Larmer: Zambia, Mining, and Neoliberalism - Boom and Bust on the Globalized Copperbelt (2010).

Dr Markus Gehring Dr Gehring is a Tutor in Sustainable Development Law at the Law Faculty, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow in Law at Robinson College. He holds an ad personam Jean Monnet Chair in Sustainable Development Law at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is an expert on international sustainable development governance and has published extensively in the area of sustainable development law, including Sustainable Development in World Trade Law (2005) and Sustainable Development in World Investment Law (2010), with Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger and Andrew Newcombe.

Dr Adam Higazi Dr Higazi is a Junior Research Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge. He specialises on northern Nigerian history, politics and ethnography, in particular collective violence in Plateau State, where he has conducted on fi eldwork in the city of Jos and in rural areas of north-central Nigeria. The holds a DPhil from Oxford and previously read social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Key publications to date are in the journals Africa and Politique africaine.

Annex 3: CGHR Associates

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Dr Humeira Iqtidar Dr Iqtidar is a Research Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies and King's College, Cambridge. Her research engages with questions regarding secularism, Islamism, citizenship, markets and governance. She has published both academic and general appeal articles dealing with these themes. Her book, Secularizing Islamists? Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Urban Pakistan (2011), is based on ethnographic interaction with the two Islamist parties. Iqtidar's new research project explores the relationship between pietist religiosity and neo-liberalism. Related to the interest in implications of neoliberalism is another research on private security fi rms employed by the US army in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Dr Beatrice Jauregui Dr Jauregui is a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, and Affi liated Academic Staff, Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her research is concerned with questions of the everyday state, legitimations of violence, and the ways in which the lived experiences of persons working in civil and military bureaucracies refl ect and shape the politics of security and democratic order. Her book manuscript, Policing Paradoxes: Disempowered State Authorities in India , is based on two years of ethnographic and historical fi eldwork analysing everyday practices of police in Uttar Pradesh, and she is co-editor of the volume Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency (2010) and author of several chapters in edited volumes as well as articles published in the Journal of South Asian Studies and Asian Policing.

Dr Glen Rangwala Dr Rangwala is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies. His main research interests are in the contemporary politics of the Middle East, particularly the Levant and the northern Gulf.

Dr Liz Watson Dr Watson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge. Recently she has been working with pastoralists in dryland northern Kenya, exploring perceptions of environmental change and the politics of debates about climate change. Her research also explores the role of religious ideas, institutions and practices in shaping relations to the environment and mobilising environment- and development-related action. Earlier work includes the book Living Terraces in Ethiopia: Konso Landscape, Culture and Development (2010), which examines the social relations underpinning the Konso landscape and the way they have changed through the twentieth century. With Günther Schlee she has also co-edited two volumes on the processes of identity formation and confl ict/alliance formation in the Horn of Africa: Changing Identifi cations and Alliances in North-east Africa, Volume I: Ethiopia and Kenya; Volume II: Sudan, Uganda and the Ethiopia-Sudan Borderlands (2009).

Dr Lee Wilson Dr Wilson is a Research Associate in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. His current research, a comparative study of civil militia groups in Indonesia, is a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and the University of Nijmegen. The research explores conceptions of safety and threat in relation to the politics of identity and the affi rmation of difference in contemporary Indonesia. More information on the project can be found at <http://www.stateofanxiety.org/>. He has published on power and knowledge, security sector reform and politics and the body in Indonesia. His prior research on martial arts and nationalism has resulted in a forthcoming monograph, Unity or Diversity? The Constitution of a National Martial Art in Indonesia.

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Partners

Centre of International Studies, POLISThe Centre of International Studies at Cambridge, which is part of the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), brings together experts from across the University and beyond to research and debate international issues. Its contribution to public, political and scholarly debate is recognised worldwide.

Centre of African StudiesThe Centre of African Studies was established in 1965 by path-breaking anthropologist Dr Audrey Richards. The Centre supports teaching on Africa at the University of Cambridge through its library and through its seminar series. It also acts as a platform for interdisciplinary research, bringing the University's Africanists together with scholars from African, American, and European universities.

Lauterpacht Centre for International LawThe Lauterpacht Centre is part of the Faculty of Law in the University of Cambridge and one of the Faculty's specialist law centres. The Centre is the scholarly home of international law at Cambridge University. International law is a major aspect of the Law Faculty's teaching programme at undergraduate, LLM and research level. The Centre's objectives are to promote the development of international law through research and publication; to serve as a forum for the discussion of current events and issues in international law; and to provide an intellectual home in Cambridge for scholars of international law from around the world to pursue their research in a stimulating and congenial atmosphere.

Centre for Gender StudiesThe University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies is an international locus for front-line gender research and is made up of a wide community of academics interested in gender from across the disciplines. The Centre runs a series of events, including a multi-disciplinary Gender Research Seminar, Symposia and a number of Public Lectures.

CrucibleCrucible is a research network within and around the University of Cambridge. Its purpose is to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration of technologists with researchers in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AH&SS). The main focus of this collaboration is on design as a meeting point for widely differing research disciplines. Crucible activities include the establishment of new research programmes, training of researchers, input to policy bodies, and identifi cation of suitable funding sources for research in interdisciplinary design.

Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH)The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) was established at the University of Cambridge in 2001 as a hub for dynamic scholarly encounter and development. CRASSH’s mission is to promote collaborations across the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, and beyond their edges, in order to stimulate innovative and interdisciplinary thinking and dialogue and to reach out to new networks of interest and new publics.

External Partners

The Centre for Governance and Human Rights is also committed to setting and achieving its research agenda by working in close collaboration with external partners. These may include individuals and research institutions, policymakers and practitioners in the UK, Africa and elsewhere. Example of partners CGHR is already working with include:

University of Pretoria's Faculty of Law and Centre for Human RightsThe University of Pretoria's Centre for Human Rights was established in 1986 after a major conference on apartheid and a new Bill of Rights for South Africa hosted on the campus of the University of Pretoria. The founding director, now Judge of the Constitutional Court, Johann van der Westhuizen, was one of four experts who wrote the fi nal version of the interim and fi nal constitutions. In its earlier years, the Centre focused on building capacity in the area of human rights in South Africa. Since then, the focus has shifted and, today, the Centre is well-established as the most active human rights organisation on the African continent.

FrontlineSMSA lack of communication can be a major barrier for grassroots non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in developing countries. FrontlineSMS is the fi rst text messaging system created exclusively with this problem in mind. By leveraging basic tools already available to most NGOs – computers and mobile phones – FrontlineSMS enables instantaneous two-way communication on a large scale. It’s easy to implement, simple to operate, and best of all, the software is free.

YouGov@CambridgeYouGov has teamed up with Cambridge University to create a new kind of think-tank – YouGov@Cambridge – where world-class academics can connect with the public pulse, as provided by YouGov’s international polling in both the developed and emerging markets. Together, these two institutions combine the tools to survey and interpret simultaneously. In the process, it is our ambition to bring ‘headlights’ to an increasingly complex world, where global trends are ever less simply about what superpowers or superbrands ‘do, and ever more about ’what the world thinks’ – and how the two interact. CGHR is currently partnering with YouGov@Cambridge in several pilot projects, including research and application of public opinion polling using mobile phones in Africa and the developing world.

Council for Assisting Refugee AcademicsThe Council for Assisting Refugee Academics aims to help university teachers and investigators of whatever country who, on grounds of religion, political opinion, or race are unable to carry out their work in their own country. Of those refugee academics supported so far, 18 have become Nobel Laureates, 16 have been knighted and 121 have been elected as Fellows to The British Academy or The Royal Society. Through its core Grant & Advice Programme, this charitable organisation has in the past 75 years provided practical support to over 9,000 displaced academics and their dependents, helping to rebuild shattered lives and ensure that their ‘special knowledge and abilities may continue to be used for the benefi t of mankind’.

Annex 4: CGHR Event Posters

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